This live was without a doubt a success.
The girls of Kessoku Band won the audience's applause, and Toru walked away with a few new contacts.
Specifically, Nijika Ijichi and Ikuyo Kita's LINE accounts… as for Hitori Gotoh's, he didn't get it. When he asked, Bocchi-chan had already transformed into her alter ego, Mango Kamen Rider, and shrunk herself into a mango box, completely out of reach.
Her level of social anxiety was off the charts.
If it weren't for Kessoku Band, Hitori Gotoh might have ended up as a shut-in NEET living off her parents. Well, not exactly... she had YouTube…
Toru suddenly realized: Bocchi-chan actually had tens of thousands of followers online. She was GuitarHero, a hugely popular guitar blogger. She didn't need to leech off anyone.
Thank you, Internet. Thank you, new era. Social anxiety finally had room to survive.
That was Toru's train of thought during class.
Coming back to himself, he glanced at the girl sitting several seats away, against the wall at the very back of the classroom.
At the same time, Hitori Gotoh felt a gaze filled with sunlight, and quickly raised her book to cover her face.
…She was actually kind of cute.
While Toru found it amusing, Hitori's feelings were in chaos. To suddenly be stared at by her white-moonlight crush, her secret godlike crush, was too much to bear.
Her imagination took off immediately.
Kitahara-kun looked at me → he likes me → will he confess tomorrow → where will we go on our first date → what kind of wedding will we have → how many kids, what will we name them → where will we be buried together?
In an instant, Bocchi-chan had it all figured out.
When she died, she wanted to be buried together with Toru in some beautiful mountain-and-river paradise.
She wasn't worried about whether this could happen.
Because she knew, these were only fantasies.
An angel wouldn't descend to her side. Pitiful, miserable Hitori Gotoh could only fall in love with her husbando inside the simulator. In reality, he had better choices, Ryo-san, Nijika-chan. Look, they were angels, they fit him perfectly. And even the daughter born in the last simulation, Shio, was cute and gentle.
'Allow me to play a spontaneous tune to express my sorrow…'
By the time her thoughts came to an end, she realized class was already over.
Lost in fantasy, she hadn't heard a single word of the lecture. It was now lunch break.
Doomed.
Midterms were next week. What should she do?
If only reality allowed her to entrust things to Miss AI, just for a little while... just to take the test in her place.
"Gotoh-san, aren't you going to eat?"
Hearing a familiar voice, Bocchi-chan froze. She slowly turned her head toward it.
No way... an angel really descended!
O great divine one, thank you.
"Ah… no, I brought a lunch." Hitori Gotoh mumbled, pulling out a pink bento box from her desk.
Her mother made it for her every morning.
"That's nice," Toru said with a touch of envy.
He had never really eaten bentos. Living alone, cooking every day before school was too troublesome.
Better to order takeout.
It wasn't like he was short on money.
In the simulation, though, he'd eaten Nijika's home cooking for quite some time. Later, after she passed away, he had shouldered all the household duties for their daughter, cooking included. In those years, his skills had reached Level 4.
One benefit of the hyper-real simulation was that skills could be carried almost one-to-one into reality. But the downside was that players could sink too deeply, confusing illusion and reality.
On top of that, it was easy for the mind to unravel.
Like the run with Ryo Yamada, an ordinary person, faced with that despair, would have sunk completely. Smoking, drinking, throwing their life away, never reaching enlightenment, never touching the perfect evaluation of transcending life and death.
Or like the photographer run, where Toru abandoned fame and fortune, drifting across the world with a tranquil heart. Could a normal person really do that? One word: impossible.
"Kitahara-kun, you always eat at the… cafeteria?" Hitori asked softly.
"Not always. Sometimes the shop is easier."
Toru touched his chin thoughtfully. "The pork cutlet sandwich is great, melon bread is good too, and the red bean bread is super popular."
But if he kept eating like that, he'd be malnourished.
Hitori worried.
Even though Toru was 180 cm and she was only 156, Bocchi-chan still cared about her husbando's health.
She remembered a reward she had chosen after one simulation.
[Heartfelt Cooking: a special cooking skill that conveys your feelings. Permanently fixed at Level EX, cannot be improved.]
After learning it, she'd let her mother and her sister Futari taste it a few times. It was delicious.
Maybe…
She could let Kitahara-kun try it?
"Kitahara-kun, do you… do you want me to make you a bento?"
For one brief moment, her courage swelled. Then she lowered her head again, muttering, "If you don't want it, that's fine."
"Make me a bento?"
Toru actually wanted to try.
Mainly because he was sick of the cafeteria and shop food.
Surely others had experienced the same thing. In the first week of high school, you think, wow, so many dishes at the cafeteria, I'll be fine for three years.
Then in university, the cafeteria had even more food, and you think, I'll eat it all for four years, non-stop!
But by the end, you were sick of high school food, and university food even more so. You'd scour delivery apps within a hundred miles just to find something new.
"Ah… okay."
Hitori Gotoh had been agonizing over how to make it up to Toru. She had rejected his friendship at the start of school, and hadn't had the chance to apologize since.
Yes! A chance for redemption! I'll buy a hundred atonement tickets!
"How much should I pay?"
"N-no money." She sneaked a glance at him, stammering.
Ah, Kitahara-kun was dazzling. She would melt. Let me die in his arms already.
"That won't do. Take this."
Toru pulled out his wallet and handed her four 10,000 yen bills. "About 1500 yen per day should cover it."
In that moment, Bocchi-chan's heart was thrown into chaos.
Someone was paying to eat her cooking… completely unlike a certain blue-haired girl with a mole under her left eye who loved long sleeves.
Truly, Kitahara-kun was an angel!
Bocchi-chan prayed silently~
Kitahara…
She looked again. "Kitahara-kun, are you sure I can really take this?"
"Of course."
Hesitantly, she reached out her hand, but then heard his next words. "If it tastes bad, you'll have to pay me back double."
Eh? Double?
Wouldn't that mean if she messed up, she'd owe him 80,000 yen?
Her hand froze mid-air.
Should she really take this money?
"All right, all right, take it. I'm joking."
Toru realized that Hitori Gotoh truly couldn't tell a joke from the truth.
As someone with severe social anxiety, she didn't even know how to refuse others.
She would definitely get bullied by bad men in the future. Poor girl.
To protect her… from now on, I'll take care of her myself.
———
Today's battle result:[Winner: Bocchi-chan]